Recorded: December 1982 – July 1984
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Jon Jacobs, John Kelly, Stuart Breed
Released: 22 October 1984
Paul McCartney: vocals, guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboards, electric harpsichord, drums
Linda McCartney: vocals, piano, keyboards
Eric Stewart: vocals
David Gilmour, Dave Edmunds, Chris Spedding, Steve Lukather, Eric Ford: guitar
Herbie Flowers, Louis Johnson, Russ Stableforth: bass guitar
George Martin, Gerry Butler: piano
Ann Dudley: synthesizer
Trevor Barstow: keyboards
Ringo Starr, Stewart Elliot, Jeff Porcaro, Dave Mattacks: drums
John Dean: drums, percussion
Jody Linscott: percussion
Pat Hulling, Laurie Lewis, Raymond Kennlyside, Tony Gilbert: violin
Derek Watkins, John Barclay, Chris Pyne, Stan Sulzmann, Dan Wallis, Laurence Williams, Thomas Fergerson, Charles Loper, Jerry Hey, Jack Armstrong, John Barclay, Alan Donney, Henry MacKenzie, Dougie Robinson, Tommy White, Ray Swinfield, David Willis, The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble: horns
Ronnie Hughes, Bobby Haughey: trumpet
Chris Smith: trombone
Jeff Bryant: French horn
Dick Morrisey, Derek Grossmith, Vic Ash: saxophone
Eddie Mordue: saxophone, clarinet
Tracklisting:
No More Lonely Nights
Good Day Sunshine
Corridor Music
Yesterday
Here, There And Everywhere
Wanderlust
Ballroom Dancing
Silly Love Songs
Silly Love Songs (Reprise)
Not Such A Bad Boy
So Bad
No Values
No More Lonely Nights (Ballad Reprise)
For No One
Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor's Dream
The Long And Winding Road
No More Lonely Nights (Playout Version)
Good Night Princess
The soundtrack album to Paul McCartney's ill-conceived film of the same name, Give My Regards To Broad Street contained a mix of new compositions and re-recorded Beatles, Wings and solo songs.
The film was made over 28 non-consecutive weeks. As with The Beatles' Get Back/Let It Be project, it was initially conceived as containing several live performances for a television special. Willy Russell wrote an initial script which was rejected; Tom Stoppard was then drafted in to assist with a plot based on the Tug Of War album, before McCartney scrapped the idea and wrote the screenplay himself.
Give My Regards To Broad Street starred Paul and Linda McCartney, Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach, and Bryan Brown, Ralph Richardson and Tracey Ullman. The plot was slight, but involved the master tapes for McCartney's new album going missing and eventually being recovered. It became a box office flop, although the soundtrack was more successful.
McCartney worked on the project between November 1982 and June 1984. The dramatic scenes were filmed during the first seven weeks, followed by 13 more on the musical sequences. Each of the musical sections represented a dream, roughly following the distinct stages of McCartney's career.
The songs
Although his muse deserted him when it came to script writing, McCartney came up with a set of strong new songs for the soundtrack. Chief among these was No More Lonely Nights, which was released as a single ahead of the album and became a transatlantic hit.
No More Lonely Nights was recorded live in a three-hour session at Elstree Film Studios with McCartney on piano and vocals, David Gilmour on guitar, Anne Dudley on synthesizer, Herbie Flowers on bass, Stuart Elliot on drums, and Eric Stewart and Linda McCartney on backing vocals.
I found it quite amazing doing No More Lonely Nights with Paul McCartney. In one three-hour session with a band we learnt it and put it down, and Paul played piano and sang the lead vocal live, and I put the guitar solo down, bang.
The song appeared in two versions on the album. An alternative 'Playout' recording was made at the request of 20th Century Fox to use over the film's closing credits. George Martin created a mix lasting 8'10", while Arthur Baker made one lasting 6'55" which was also edited to 3'56". These were used on various editions of the single.
Other new songs included Corridor Music, an instrumental piece of incidental music based on Wings' Wild Life track Mumbo. However, another piece used in the film, Glorina, did not make it to the soundtrack.
Not Such A Bad Boy and No Values were also new compositions, and showed that McCartney's muse hadn't deserted him. The latter song reportedly came to him in a dream, and was first recorded in Montserrat while working on Tug Of War, but was reworked for the soundtrack.
I dreamt this song. I dreamt that I was with The Rolling Stones. They were all there, Mick, Bill, Charlie, Keith, and Mick was up front. I woke up and said to myself, 'I really like that song that they do.' Then I thought, 'Hey, wait a minute, there is no Rolling Stones song called No Value. They don't do that song.' My brain just created it. So I thought, 'Well, there it is. I've got this new song called No Values.' But I won't be telling Mick; he'll probably claim the copyright.
The big band-style Good Night Princess was a bonus track on the compact disc edition. It was recorded the day after a remake of The Long And Winding Road at AIR Studios in November 1983; McCartney provides a spoken word contribution, but does not otherwise appear on the song.
Of the other songs, six were reworkings of Beatles songs: Good Day Sunshine, Yesterday, Here, There And Everywhere, For No One, Elanor Rigby and The Long And Winding Road. Another album track, Eleanor's Dream, was an orchestral instrumental based on melodies from Eleanor Rigby.
Wanderlust and Ballroom Dancing were re-recordings of Tug Of War songs, while So Bad had originally appeared on Pipes Of Peace. Silly Love Songs was older still, dating from 1976's Wings At The Speed Of Sound.
i really enjoyed the no more lonely nights and the mull of Kintyre videos ,I found the no more lonely nights video very sad and I am a guitarist and plan to learn both on my guitar kind regards nikki higgs